Monday, October 12, 2015

She's Got Legs (That Suck)

So if you are friends with my RTGW Facebook page, you know that I set out for my long run on Saturday and unfortunately didn't make it even close to my goal due to my adductor acting up again. When I went out for my run I had two perimeters in mind. 1) I was going to set my Garmin for 16 miles, with the full understanding that there was no pressure to actually hit the 16 miles. 2) If I felt even a twinge of pain to stop immediately. Not stopping last week was what got me in trouble.

So the beginning of the run went fine, I took things slower (I was doing sub 12 and sometimes sub 11 miles last week) and made sure that I stayed close to my car in case I did get in trouble. I was hopeful by mile 4 that everything was going to be okay and that last week was a fluke since my legs were feeling great and I wasn't feeling anything out of the ordinary. By mile 6 I was like cool, maybe I will hit this 16 mile goal, and I felt even more confident about the run. So last week when the thing with my leg went down, it started by just feeling off, one of those things where you mentally go "hmm". Then it felt like my muscle was itchy, as though there were bugs crawling on it, that is the best way I can describe it. Then it was sore, then it felt like I was shot in the leg and I had to do the walk of shame back to my car. So now that I've set you up....

At 7.5 miles my leg started to feel off. Same leg, same spot. My heart sank a little, but I kept going in the hopes that maybe it wasn't actually going to go through the same pattern as last week. When I hit 8 miles, the muscle shifted from feeling off to that same bizarre itchy feeling, and I knew it wasn't going to go in a positive direction. As my muscle steadily felt more itchy and then achy, I cut the run at 8.5 miles. The good news is that I didn't have pain the rest of the day, which was the polar opposite of last weekend when I could barely walk for 2 days. But the bad news is that apparently around the 7/8 mile mark, my adductor is going to act up, which obviously is terrifying at this stage of the game. The frustrating part is that it doesn't feel sore even in the least at the moment, which is of course because I was smart enough to stop this time, but still. I have no idea where this is coming from, I've never had issues with this muscle group in my life!

Many of you have asked me if I've seen or plan to see a PT, and honestly, probably not. For one, I have a near pathological mistrust of doctors because I have had horrible experiences with doctors not helping me. There was the foot doctor who told me that I was too overweight to run and that "running just isn't for you". There was the general practitioner who looked at me with disgust and asked me if I'd ever thought about getting a breast reduction since they were huge and saggy. (Yes, this was a woman who did this). And then recently the GI who I waited a month to see and paid a $50 copay, then poured my heart out to over my issues, only to be told to take Miralax. Which I'd just finished telling him doesn't work despite several attempts on my part. And there are many more stories than that. Suffice to say, I basically have to be dying to go to a doctor and even then I go kicking and screaming. My general experience is that they don't listen, are impatient and treat you as though you are stupid and I don't need to pay for that shit. Secondly, any person I've known who does PT? They're basically doing yoga stretches, which I can do in my own home for free. I'm not trying to be stubborn about it, but I've just had too many experiences where the doctor takes the copay and then craps some nonsense out of their mouth that doesn't help. Like the lady doctor a few months ago who told me that the reason I was having GI issues was because I eat apples. Yes folks, eating apples makes you constipated apparently....Anyway, basically I've done my best and healed more efficiently when helping my damn self, so that's what I'm going to try to do here.

I'm reading more on adductor treatment and it sounds like the best course for treatment is trigger point therapy. I am a huge believer in trigger point therapy and have that great pain management book at home, so I am going to try to aggressively massage this week, and then try for a long run again Saturday. If I continue to have issues at the 8 mile mark, then I suppose I have some decisions to make.

3 comments:

I'm gonna throw this out there since I just started PT for tendinitis...I do stretches and some exercises on my own, but my PT does stuff I can't (manual work like massage and trigger point therapy) but also ultrasound therapy which is immensely helpful. And since I'm going to a PT who specializes in sports rehab, it means that I gave her a goal to "get me back to running"...so it's literally her job to give me the tools to get there. So..it *could* be useful to see a sports PT if you don't see improvement with just trigger point therapy!

I agree with previous poster, my first thought was something with the trail, not you. Eight miles is a lot of mileage to get before it starts acting up, seems like if it was a more serious issue it would bother you straightaway or at least in the first couple of miles.

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About Me

I'm a Louisiana girl living in the Pacific NW, wife of the most patient man in the world, and dog mom to the grand diva of all greyhounds. Working towards a healthy weight through calorie counting and strength training and trying to have a sense of humor about it along the way!

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